The General (1926 film)
The General | |
---|---|
Devereaux Jennings | |
Edited by | Buster Keaton Sherman Kell |
Music by | William P. Perry (1926)[a] |
Production companies | Buster Keaton Productions Joseph M. Schenck Productions |
Distributed by | United Artists |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 75 minutes (8 reels) (times vary with different versions) |
Country | United States |
Languages | Silent film English intertitles |
Budget | $750,000 |
Box office | $1 million |
The General is a 1926 American
At the time of its initial release, The General, an
In 1954, the film entered the public domain in the United States because its claimant did not renew its copyright registration in the 28th year after publication.[2]
The General has since been reevaluated, and is now often ranked among the greatest American films ever made. In 1989, it was selected by the Library of Congress to be included in the first class of films for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot
When
A year passes, and Annabelle receives word that her father has been wounded. She travels north on the W&ARR to see him, with The General pulling the train. When it makes a stop, the passengers and crew detrain for a quick meal. As previously planned, Union Army spies led by Captain Anderson use the opportunity to steal the train. Anderson's objective is to burn all the railroad bridges he passes, thus preventing reinforcement and resupply of the Confederate army. Annabelle, who returned to a baggage car, becomes an inadvertent prisoner of the raiders.
Johnnie gives chase, first on foot, then by
The Union agents try various methods to shake their pursuer, including disconnecting their trailing car and dropping
At nightfall, Johnnie climbs through the window of a house to steal some food, but hides underneath a table when some Union officers enter. He overhears their plan for a surprise attack and that the Rock River Bridge is essential for their supporting supply trains. He then sees Annabelle brought in; she is taken to a room under guard while they decide what to do with her. Johnnie manages to knock out both guards and free Annabelle. They escape into the rainy woods.
As day breaks, Johnnie and Annabelle find themselves near a railway station where Union soldiers and equipment are being organized for the attack. Seeing The General, Johnnie devises a plan to warn the South. After sneaking Annabelle onto a boxcar, Johnnie steals his engine back. Two Union trains, including the Texas, set out after the pair, while the Union attack is launched. In a reversal of the first chase, Johnnie now has to fend off his pursuers. Finally, he starts a fire behind The General in the center of the Rock River Bridge, to cut off the Union's important supply line.
Reaching friendly lines, Johnnie warns the Confederate commander of the impending attack and their forces rush to meet the enemy. Meanwhile, Annabelle is reunited with her convalescing father. The pursuing Texas drives onto the burning bridge, which collapses. When Union soldiers try to ford the river, Confederate fire drives them back.
Afterward, Johnnie returns to his locomotive to find the Union officer whom he had knocked out in escaping earlier has now regained consciousness. He takes the officer prisoner and is spotted by the Confederate general. As a reward for his bravery, he is commissioned a lieutenant and given the captured officer's sword.
Returning to The General with Annabelle, he tries to kiss her, but has to repeatedly return the salutes of troops walking past. Johnnie finally uses his left hand to embrace Annabelle while using his right to salute the passing soldiers.
Cast
- Buster Keaton as Johnnie Gray
- Marion Mack as Annabelle Lee
- Glen Cavender as Union Captain Anderson
- Jim Farley as General Thatcher
- Frederick Vroom as a Confederate general
- Charles Smith as Annabelle's father
- Frank Barnes as Annabelle's brother
- Joe Keaton as a Union general
- Mike Donlin as a Union general
- Tom Nawn as a Union general
Production
In early 1926, Keaton's collaborator Clyde Bruckman told him about William Pittenger's 1889 memoir The Great Locomotive Chase about the 1862 Great Locomotive Chase. Keaton was a huge fan of trains and had read the book.[3] Although it was written from the Union Army perspective, Keaton did not believe that the audience would accept Confederates as villains and changed the story's point of view.[4] Keaton looked into shooting the film in the area where the original events took place, and attempted to authorize a lease agreement for the real-life General. At that time, the locomotive was on display at Chattanooga Union Station. The Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway, who had entitlement on the engine, denied Keaton's request when they realized the film was going to be a comedy.[5]
In April 1926, Keaton's location manager, Burt Jackson, found an area in
The cast and crew arrived in Cottage Grove, Oregon, on May 27, 1926, with 18 freight cars full of Civil War-era cannons, rebuilt passenger cars, stagecoaches, houses, wagons and laborers. The crew stayed at the Bartell Hotel in nearby Eugene and brought three 35 mm cameras with them from Los Angeles. On May 31, set construction began with the materials, and regular train service in Cottage Grove ceased until the end of production.[7] One third of the film's budget was spent in Cottage Grove, and 1,500 locals were hired.[8]
Filming began on June 8. At first, Keaton completely ignored Mack on set. She said that "Buster just stuck to the job and to his little clique, and that was all" and that the crew "stopped the train when they saw a place to play baseball." Keaton eventually came to like Mack during production, often playing practical jokes on her. The atmosphere on set was lighthearted, and every Sunday the cast and crew played baseball with local residents, who often said that Keaton could have been a professional player.[8]
According to a United Artists press release at the time, the film had 3,000 people on its payroll and cost $400 an hour to make.[8] Entertainment trade papers reported rumors that the film's budget had grown to between $500,000 and $1 million, and that Keaton was out of control, building real bridges and having dams constructed to change the depths of rivers. Producer Schenck was angry at Keaton over the growing costs. There were also numerous on-set accidents that contributed to the growing budget. This included Keaton being knocked unconscious; an assistant director being shot in the face with a blank cartridge; a train wheel running over a brakeman's foot, resulting in a $2,900 lawsuit; and the train's wood-burning engine causing numerous fires. The fires often spread to forests and farmers' haystacks, which cost the production $25 per burnt stack.[9]
On July 23, Keaton shot the climactic train wreck scene in the conifer forest near Cottage Grove. The town declared a local holiday so that everyone could watch the spectacle. Between three and four thousand local residents showed up,
Another fire broke out during the filming of a large fight scene, which not only cost the production $50,000, but also forced Keaton and the crew to return to Los Angeles on August 6 due to excessive smoke.[12] Heavy rains finally cleared the smoke in late August and production resumed. Shooting concluded on September 18. Keaton had shot 200,000 feet of film and began a lengthy editing process for a late December release date.[13]
Keaton performed many dangerous physical stunts on and around the moving train, including jumping from the
Another dangerous stunt involved him sitting on one of the coupling rods connecting the drivers of the locomotive; had the locomotive suffered a wheelspin, Keaton might have been thrown from the rod and injured or killed. Shot in one take, the scene shows the train starting gently and gradually picking up speed as it enters a shed, while Keaton's character Johnnie Gray, distracted and heartbroken, is oblivious.[15]
In the cast credits, Keaton's name/character is listed last.
Release and initial reception
The General premiered on December 31, 1926, in two small theaters in
On its initial release, the film largely failed to please the critics.
Legacy
In 1963, Keaton said, "I was more proud of that picture than any I ever made. Because I took an actual happening out of the... history books, and I told the story in detail too".[18] Following changes in taste and critical reevaluation of Keaton's work, later audiences and critics have come to agree with him, and The General is now considered a major classic of the silent era. David Robinson wrote, "Every shot has the authenticity and the unassumingly correct composition of a Mathew Brady Civil War photograph." Raymond Durgnat wrote, "Perhaps The General is the most beautiful [film], with its spare, grey photography, its eye for the racy, lunging lines of the great locomotives, with their prow-like cowcatchers, with its beautifully sustained movement."[23] In 2015, leftist magazine Jacobin called the film a "comic masterpiece" but denounced it for "promoting" the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.[24]
In 1954 the film entered the public domain in the United States because its claimant did not renew its copyright registration in the 28th year after publication.[2]
In 1989, The General was selected for preservation in the United States
In the decennial
A mural was painted on a building in Cottage Grove, Oregon commemorating the film.[37] David Thomson has speculated it is "the only memorial in the United States to Buster Keaton."[38]
U.S. film distributor
The film was recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
- 2000: AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs – #18[41]
- 2007: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – #18[42]
Versions
In 1953, a new version of the film was created by film distributor and collector Raymond Rohauer, re-edited with an introduction and music. That version is still under copyright, because Rohauer filed a copyright registration in 1953 and renewed it in 1983.[2]
In 1987, Carl Davis composed a score for the film,[43] which was later used with a 4K restoration of the film in 2019.[44]
In 2016 or 2017, an original score was commissioned to celebrate the 90th anniversaries of both The General and the Hollywood Theatre in Portland, Oregon. The film subsequently toured Oregon.[45] After its showing in Cottage Grove, the president of the National Film Registry offered the master print of the movie for production of the DVD. It is currently in production, and a worldwide tour is planned to accompany the DVD release.[citation needed]
Notes
- ^ Carl Davis (1987), Robert Israel (1995), Baudime Jam (1999), Joe Hisaishi (2004), Timothy Brock (2005) and Angelin Fonda (2017) later acted as music supervisors on various restorations of this film.
See also
- Buster Keaton filmography
- List of films and television shows about the American Civil War
- The Great Locomotive Chase, a 1956 film
References
Citations
- ^ "BFI: The General". bfi.org. Archived from the original on October 22, 2012. Retrieved December 6, 2010.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4133-1205-8. Retrieved October 31, 2010.
- ^ Meade 1997, p. 161.
- ^ Hunt, Kristin (July 2, 2020). "What Drove Buster Keaton to Try a Civil War Comedy?". JSTOR Daily. Retrieved June 24, 2022.
- ^ a b Meade 1997, p. 162.
- ^ Meade 1997, pp. 162–163.
- ^ Meade 1997, p. 163.
- ^ a b c Meade 1997, p. 164.
- ^ a b Meade 1997, p. 165.
- ^ "The General – Silent Film Festival". silentfilm.org.
- ^ Tim Dirks. "The General (1927)". Filmsite. Retrieved July 26, 2017.
- ^ a b Meade 1997, p. 166.
- ^ Meade 1997, p. 169.
- ISBN 978-0-8108-7683-5.
- ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "Film on Youtube". YouTube.
- ^ Meade 1997, p. 171.
- ^ a b Meade 1997, p. 172.
- ^ a b Meade 1997, p. 173.
- ^ Variety; February 9, 1927
- ^ Hall, Mordaunt (February 8, 1927). "The General (1927)". The New York Times.
- ^ Los Angeles Times, May 12, 1927
- ISBN 978-0-8242-0757-1. p. 528.
- ^ Wakeman. 1987. p. 528.
- ^ Jones, Eileen (Spring 2012). "The Cinematic Lost Cause". Jacobin. Retrieved March 15, 2021.
- ^ "ENTERTAINMENT: Film Registry Picks First 25 Movies". Los Angeles Times. Washington, D.C. September 19, 1989. Retrieved April 22, 2020.
- ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved October 2, 2020.
- ^ Molotsky, Irvin (September 20, 1989). "25 Films Chosen for the National Registry: Listed classics that have been colored or edited will have to carry notices". New York Times. Retrieved July 8, 2019.
- ^ "Sight & Sound Top Ten Poll: 1972". British Film Institute. 1972. Archived from the original on June 17, 2012. Retrieved January 23, 2018.
- ^ "Sight & Sound Top Ten Poll: 1982". British Film Institute. 1982. Archived from the original on June 17, 2012. Retrieved October 12, 2016.
- Sight & Sound. No. September 2012. British Film Institute. Archived from the originalon August 2, 2012. Retrieved October 12, 2016.
- Sight & Sound. British Film Institute. 2012. Archived from the originalon February 9, 2016.
- ^ "How the directors and critics voted / Roger Ebert / Top Ten". bfi.org.uk. Archived from the original on May 17, 2012.
- ^ Roger Ebert (May 31, 1997). "The General (1927)". rogerebert.suntimes.com.
- ^ "Dave's Movie Database: "The Top 100 Movies of All Time"". Davesmoviedatabase.blogspot. June 29, 2020.
- ^ "Comedies: Top 25". Davesmoviedatabase.blogspot. August 30, 2019.
- ^ "Silent Movies: Top 25". Davesmoviedatabase.blogspot. September 3, 2019.
- ^ Miller, Bill (August 3, 2008). "The General of Cottage Grove". Medford, OR: Mail Review. Retrieved October 12, 2016.
- ISBN 0-375-40016-8. p. 382.
- ^ "The General (Ultimate Edition)". kino.com. Archived from the original on October 14, 2008.
- ^ a b The General Blu-Ray Blu-ray.com
- ^ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs" (PDF). American Film Institute. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 24, 2016. Retrieved July 17, 2016.
- ^ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)" (PDF). American Film Institute. Retrieved July 17, 2016.
- ^ "The General, Carl Davis". Faber Music.
- ^ Billington, Alex (June 12, 2019). "New Trailer for 4K Restoration of Buster Keaton Classic 'The General'". FirstShowing.net.
- ^ Scott, Aaron (August 6, 2016). "Buster Keaton's Oregon-Filmed "The General" Tours State with New Score". OPB. Retrieved September 21, 2016.
Sources
- Meade, Marion (1997). Buster Keaton: Cut to the Chase. New York, New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80802-1.
- Orson Welles interview, from the Kino November 10, 2009 Blu-ray edition of The General
- Daring and Suffering: A History of the Great Railway Adventure by Lieutenant William Pittenger
Bibliography
- Huntley, John (1969). Railways In The Cinema. Ian Allan. pp. 33–42. SBN 7110 0115 4.
External links
- The General at IMDb
- The General at the American Film Institute Catalog
- The General at the TCM Movie Database
- The General at AllMovie
- The General is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive
- The General on YouTube
- The General at the International Buster Keaton Society
- Tour of The General filming locations (Archived)
- The General essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 ISBN 0826429777, pages 124-126